Terae said, "If Alderaan had kept to its principles of peace and neutrality, the Empire would not have attacked."

And if the Empire had not been corrupt, venal, and determined to destroy any hint of resistance, the Empire would not have presented a threat to Alderaan's peace in the first place, Leia thought. This was not an argument she wanted to have again, but she seemed perpetually doomed to repeat it. Her punishment for surviving, perhaps.

"Alderaan was too powerful, too influential. Sooner or later, the Empire would have found a reason to attack us, no matter how peaceful and neutral we claimed to be."